whole 30: week 4 + results!

aaaaannnnndddd...we did it! woohoo. i won't say i'm shocked we made it, but i'm almost surprised and also extremely proud of us. 30 days is both nothing and a realllly long time when it comes to habits and consumption.

so, what did we learn? well, we will know more as we do a calculated, slow reintroduction of things and decide what/how much of other food groups to add back in to our diets. but, i can say without question that i feel amazing. probably the best i've ever felt in my life. low anxiety levels, great sleep, good, consistent energy. i definitely need to add exercise in to my day because it makes me even calmer and more even-keeled, but that's going to be the game plan this month.

i tried to make a list of stuff i miss and it's really short. way shorter than i expected:
- hummus (kinda)
- rice (kinda)
- cheese (mostly good parmesan)
- tortilla chips (duh, but these are off the list for a while since i can't stop)

i think that's it! weird, right? i think about bread a lot, but i don't really miss it since it's got lots of power over my brain and doesn't make me feel awesome. i love it, but i think it's going to be a rare treat rather than a daily or weekly part of my life. we'll see.

so the results! clearly, jb did awesome. i blame this on the fact that he's a man. but we were both pretty stoked with the outcome (so far!):

jb:
- lost 15.2 lbs
- lost 3.25 inches in his waist
- lost almost 2 inches in his hips
- lost inches in his thigh

pb:
- lost 8.4 lbs
- lost 5 inches in my waist
- lost 1.5 inches in my bust
- lost almost 2 inches in my hips
- lost 1.5 inches in my thigh

not bad, especially considering the other non-measurable benefits.

food for the final week-ish:

thursday:
meal 1 - eggs, avocado, cherries
meal 2 - salad with hb egg, french beans, cherry tomatoes, avocado, carrots, evoo. also had a burger patty at a team offsite as my protein.
meal 3 - ribeye with roasted broccoli and a salad of spinach, beets, avocado, almonds

friday:
meal 1 - sauteed spinach, avocado, and an egg with some grilled pork cutlet
meal 2 - steak salad with leftovers, spinach, beets, avocado, almonds
meal 3 - had some friends over so we had apps of guac with plantain chips and olives. for dinner we had fajita beef and chicken, grilled zucchini and squash with homemade cilantro lime mayo, sauteed onions and peppers and cole slaw

saturday:
meal 1 - leftover chicken and cilantro mayo over a bed of leftover veggies, topped with a sunnyside up egg
meal 2 - same as lunch - this stuff was tasty!
meal 3 - went to a bbq so i made my slaw and had lots of that with a burger patty

sunday:
meal 1 - eggs, spinach, avocado, plantains
meal 2 - leftover chicken, leftover slaw, leftover roasted broccoli
meal 3 - we went to central market - jb had a shrimp and cauliflower dish. i was feeling kind of weird (paint fumes?), so i had plain grilled salmon and some rosemary roasted potatoes

monday:
meal 1 - leftover broccoli, sauteed mini peppers, eggs, avocado
meal 2 - salad with grilled pork cutlet over spinach, bell pepper, radishes, carrots, hemp hearts, avocado. dressed with cilantro lime mayo and had an apple and some raspberries
meal 3 - moroccan salmon (spicy!) with roasted zucchini and squash with dill, sweet potato fries - we dipped the salmon in a little mayo because it was such a spicy dish

tuesday:
meal 1 - leftover zucchini and squash, eggs, avocado, cherries
meal 2 - leftover salmon, veggies, etc from dinner on monday
meal 3 - roasted acorn squash and a hodgepodge of onion, ground beef and cabbage with curry powder

whole 30: week 3.

we are winding down the last few days of the whole30 and i kind of can't believe it. in many ways, it's been way easier than i expected. it's also been really rewarding and awesome. in week 3, we didn't go as crazy with planning and prep and still managed to stay compliant and eat delish foods. i also was able to put on some jeans i haven't worn in like 8 months, so that was a big win for me! we did get sorta bored in week 3 because we repeated a lot of meals (cole slaw) and we grilled a boatload of chicken and sausage early in the week, which was convenient, but also made me feel like that's alllll we ate.

emma asked if our kidlets are eating this way too, and the answer is...kinda. i have bread in the house for them to have sandwiches for lunch a couple days a week. they are still eating cheese. the day i made chicken coconut curry, they had applegate farms chicken nuggets with alexia tots and fruit. so...definitely not 100%, but maybe 80% for ek and 60% for hollis? it's way too hard to monitor it at school, so they are still having goldfish and popsicles or whatever other treats they get served. but they are making strides - especially ek. and hollis has taken some bites that he hadn't before, so...baby steps...

food!

wednesday:
meal 1 - leftover kale & sausage quiche with sweet potato crust; leftover broccoli and asparagus.
meal 2 - cabbage slaw with chicken; gazpacho (the kids helped me make it - fun!)
meal 3 - salad with baby spinach & kale, chicken, olives, carrots, onion, cashews; sunshine sauce as the dressing

thursday:
meal 1 - one egg and chicken/apple sausage with sauteed baby bok choy
meal 2 - salad with grilled chicken, carrots, radishes, onion, orange peppers, and blueberry walnut vinaigrette (homemade, of course)
meal 3 - paleo shepherd's pie (ground beef, carrots, onion, celery, topped with sweet potatoes); side of cole slaw

friday:
meal 1 - eggs and sauteed spinach/kale; half an avocado
meal 2 - chicken salad with a hardboiled egg and homemade mayo; leftover veggies
meal 3 - ny strips with salad of baby kale/spinach, oranges, avocado and beets; roasted carrots

saturday:
meal 1 - leftover beet salad wtih eggs and whole30 compliant bacon (pederson's from whole foods - yum!)
meal 2 - more slaw with leftover pork tenderloin and romesco
meal 3 - chicken & apple sausage with sweet potatoes and roasted broccoli

sunday:
meal 1 - jb made me a mother's day brunch with an omelet stuffed with chicken/apple sausage, spinach, yellow bell pepper and a side of bacon
meal 2 - tuna salad with a side of an apple and some kalamata olives
meal 3 - spaghetti squash with homemade tomato sauce and turkey meatballs

monday:
meal 1 - turkey and eggs; sauteed spinach; cherries
meal 2 - leftover spaghetti squash and meatballs
meal 3 - cauliflower rice with crockpot coconut curry chicken (yummmm)

tuesday:
meal 1 - chicken apple sausage with sauteed yellow squash and cherries
meal 2 - a random pile of stuff from the fridge: tuna, raspberries, mini bell peppers, french beans, hardboiled egg, leftover squash, cherries, olives, and pesto mayo
meal 3 - zoodles with grilled shrimp and pesto

wednesday:
meal 1 - sweet potato, chicken apple sausage, eggs, avocado
meal 2 - salad with chicken, onion, carrots, cherry tomatoes, spinach, olives, mini peppers, radishes, dressed with evoo and an apple on the side
meal 3 - we had a date this night, so i grabbed leftovers - more sausage, squash, sweet potato, french beans, and mayo

outside time.

we've been spending a lot of time outside, living it up in this spring weather before it becomes unbearably hot here. we eat outside and bike a lot and the kids ask basically every day if we can go to the park, so we oblige as much as possible. the best side effect of this whole30 thing has been that i have had every meal planned for the whole week, so we spend virtually no time thinking about what we're going to eat. that is especially awesome for weeknight activities with the kidlets, which have been much more abundant with the extra daylight. 

science fair.

last week (i think it was last week? where is the time going?), ek's class hosted the parents to show off the work they'd done for their science fair. it was adorable. she'd been talking about her experiment for almost a month, and she was sooooo proud to show it off and have us at her school. man, i love that child.

emme's partner was a kid named adam and their project was float vs. sink - understanding what objects do in water. other kids did stuff on primary vs. secondary colors, force, incline planes, ladybug metamorphosis, etc. each pair had a table and the parents got to walk around and talk to each kid about what they'd been working on. then, we all went outside and the kids stood in a group and answered questions about all the concepts from all the experiments. so so cute. then they each got a certificate and there were cookies and lemonade for snack.

whole30: week 2.

today is day 16, so we are past the halfway mark! woohoo! i am pretty impressed with our commitment so far. we've had social engagements, happy hours, barbecues and two weekends, and we have stayed strong. i'm especially proud of jb, mainly because it makes it about a bazillion times easier on me to have someone to do this with me.

results so far: about the same, i think? it's clear jb has lost lbs., but i don't think i've lost any yet. i have a long way to go and my body is extremely slow to respond to stuff, so i'm trying not to get discouraged. other than a couple of weird nights and extenuating circumstances, we are sleeping pretty incredibly. my energy is consistent throughout the day, and i don't want to collapse onto a couch the minute we get the kidlets down. my skin is much clearer, i think. so, all good. no "tiger blood" yet (which is what they say you hit in the second half of the program), but all good.

so what did we eat? so glad you asked:

wednesday:
meal 1 - leftover chicken breasts cubed with sauteed cherry tomatoes, topped with homemade spinach-walnut pesto
meal 2 - i had a lunch out at chipotle - lettuce, chicken, pico, guac, super satisfying. i was meeting a coworker and it had been scheduled for over a month, so i went with it. jb had mexican tuna lettuce wraps - tuna with cilantro, purple onion, avocado, etc.
meal 3 - crockpot brisket cooked in homemade bone broth with butternut squash and a greek salad with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, red bells, cucumber, kalamata olives, and homemade dressing (evoo, red wine vinegar)

thursday:
meal 1 - sauteed power greens topped with fried eggs and roasted red pepper sauce; grapes
meal 2 - leftover brisket & butternut squash, topped with some pesto; more grapes
meal 3 - baked steelhead trout with a veggie medley of broccoli, onion, mushrooms, yellow squash sauteed in ghee, topped with roasted red pepper sauce

friday:
meal 1 - leftover trout with pesto; butternut squash soup i made with remaining bone broth (so. good.)
meal 2 - greek salad with olives, peppers, onion, power greens, and two hard-boiled eggs - homemade dressing
meal 3 - we met some friends at central market and there was oregano sauteed salmon on special, so we each ate that with double spinach (instead of the bulgur it came with)
snack - i was weirdly hungry friday, so i had a small apple and some cashews shortly after lunch

saturday:
meal 1 - scramble of eggs, mushrooms, onion, power greens, topped with pesto and half an avocado
meal 2 - paleo salmon cakes (i subbed coconut flour for almond flour and i didn't do the swap properly, so these were super dry, but i will make them again...); topped with homemade mayo to combat the dry-ness; butternut squash soup
meal 3 - baked sweet potatoes topped with crockpot carnitas and avocado mayo; roasted brussels sprouts

sunday:
meal 1 - leftover carnitas topped with a fried egg; plantains fried in coconut oil with a little kosher salt and cinammon (yum!!); leftover veggies from thursday night's dinner
meal 2 - cold thai salad made with zoodles, carrots, cilantro, cashews, topped with sunshine sauce; leftover salmon cakes with homemade mayo
meal 3 - brisket at the neighborhood bbq - super yummy! i brought cole slaw, so i knew it was compliant - green & red cabbage, cilantro, pineapple, green onion, carrots, dressed with homemade mayo, ACV, sesame oil

monday:
meal 1 - twice-baked sweet potato egg cups - half of leftover sweet potato topped with an egg and baked for 12-15 minutes...this wasn't nearly enough food, so when i got to work i had two hard-boiled eggs with homemade salsa and some grapes (no fat, so not ideal, but still compliant)
meal 2 - cole slaw with homemade dressing and chicken breast
meal 3 - steamed zoodles with garlicky shrimp and homemade romesco sauce (this was shockingly good and filling)

tuesday:
meal 1 - crispy kale & sausage quiche with sweet potato crust (i modified this recipe with chicken apple sausage)
meal 2 - chicken protein salad made with grilled chicken, mayo, kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes, basil from the garden, red wine vinegar, and pine nuts on a bed of baby spinach/baby kale, topped with a drizzle of homemade ranch
meal 3 - salmon with roasted broccoli and prosciutto-wrapped asparagus spears

so that's it! onward...

the terrific twos.

some mornings i am not a great parent. i wish this weren't true, and i wish these mornings were fewer and farther between, but man. some days are just hard.

jb leaves for work usually by 7ish at the latest. this is around the same time the kids are waking up. he is really amazing about doing as much for them/me/the house as he can before heading out, but i still cover the lion's share of the morning wrangling solo.

this morning, i was super tired. in spite of the whole30 goodness i've been putting in my body and the amazing sleep i've been getting up until this point, i did not sleep well saturday night or sunday night. saturday night i had a beastly headache and kept waking up because it hurt so badly. sunday night...well, who knows? i was already tired, but i had a weird dry cough (allergies maybe?) and hollis was sleeping restlessly and making noise, so i kept waking up too. i moved to the guest bed, but no dice. just a rough night of sleep - it happens.

but then. i couldn't get out of my funk/tired/grumpiness. so i took it out on the kids, and now i just feel awful about it. ek is obsessed with this long-sleeved dress that's wayyyy too warm for the summery weather we're having, and i was short and impatient with her, telling her she couldn't wear it. she started crying immediately, and i did manage to reel it in and apologize, telling her i was out of line because i was tired and whatnot. but still - she didn't do anything wrong, and on any other day i probably would have just let her wear the dress. ugh.

anyway. then there was hollis. he woke up fairly sweet and full of love, but this dude is really embracing all that is tales of the "terrible" twos right now. he is sassy and explosive and he can get so emotional. he also loses it over nothing. this morning it was not wanting to put shoes on, which he was hysterical about for a while, until he dropped the bite of banana he'd been holding for like 40 minutes on the floor of the car. so, it was covered in leaves and dog hair, so i threw it away. which accelerated his tailspin even further, so when i dropped him off he was just a wreck. i tried to calm him, hold him, soothe him, but it just wasn't making a dent and i didn't have the energy to deal with irrational two year-old drama. which just leaves me feeling like crap for the whole day.

tomorrow is another day, right?